


every happy return

by RaisingCaiin



Series: the kitten fics [2]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Flirting, Homecoming, M/M, Memories, Mentions of Major Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-24 01:39:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15619650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaisingCaiin/pseuds/RaisingCaiin
Summary: After a long absence, Annatar is worried that Tyelperinquar may have taken it into his head to adopt more kittens.Tyelperinquar promises that he hasn't, but nothing more than that.





	every happy return

**Author's Note:**

  * For [erlkoenig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/erlkoenig/gifts), [thulimo](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=thulimo).



> happy first birthday to the real-life inspirations for this fic, the once and future Shoe and the original Sock! please pass along the best wishes from a major fan?

“Tyelpe. Tyelpe.”

The second time his name was said – or at least he _thought_ it was the second time: he hadn’t really been paying much attention before, given how Annatar’s lips were _right there_ – the syllables were punctuated by Annatar’s palm slid softly up the back of his head to form a gentle fist in his hair, where it tugged lightly as Annatar tried a third time.

“ _Tyelpe_.” 

“Mmmm?” He pulled back from his ongoing appreciation of those lips to try and focus, but it was a difficult task. Until today Annatar had been absent for several months on one of his habitual forays beyond the city gates, but this had been his first such trip since they had become lovers, and Tyelperinquar –

Well. Tyelperinquar had found the ensuing days and weeks and months passing insufferably slowly without him, and now that time had resumed its normal course with Annatar’s return, he was really hoping to make the most of it with something he’d missed near as much as the debates with his lover.

But Annatar just sighed, fond and a little exasperated – likely as it became obvious that there would be few actual words forthcoming from him. “Are you with me again, love?”

“Mmmmm. ‘M right here.” His lover was already up against the wall of Tyelperinquar’s own chambers, and had been ever since Tyelperinquar could reasonably kick the door closed behind them, so he wasn’t quite sure what Annatar was hinting at with this question. “An’ I don’t want you to leave anytime soon.”

Each of Annatar’s sighs seemed to channel enough energy to power one of the new wind-driven mills that the Mírdain had designed and erected in his recent absence.

“I too hope that my departure does not become necessary, Tyelpe, but it would help if you could focus, just for a moment.” Unfortunately, Annatar’s hand still in his hair and its more purposeful tug this time only achieved the opposite effect: it took all Tyelperinquar’s will to fight back a moan.

Annatar ignored this rather spectacular failure with all his usual benevolence. “I just thought to check, precious - where are those terrible little creatures of yours? It would rather spoil my homecoming celebration if we were to trip over them somewhere along the way to your bed, would it not?”

O- _ho_. Honestly, Tyelperinquar had almost forgotten.

He had only been able to measure the length of Annatar’s absence by two things: a rough sketch of the months and their days until his lover’s promised return, scratched onto the side of the desk in his room, and –

Well.

Annatar would be seeing the other measure soon enough, wouldn’t he.

“You’re right,” he murmured, pressing one last kiss to the corner of Annatar’s mouth before pulling back. “They’re probably in my bedchamber, actually. Come check with me?”

But something about his expression or else the return to almost full coherence gave him away: Annatar’s eyes narrowed. “Tyelpe. You are hiding something from me.”

“Would I ever?” If the game was up then the game was up – Tyelperinquar didn’t bother to hold back a grin as he pulled away from Annatar completely, even as his entire body protested the loss of his lover’s warmth and weight pressed close against him.

“You would,” Annatar said, accusing. “What have you done, Tyelpe.”

“Ai, that’s not even a question!” Tyelperinquar protested, but judging by Annatar’s ungainly snort, his ongoing grin somewhat ruined the effect. “Alas for me! Will I be given any opportunity to demonstrate my blamelessness?”

“I am noticing the singular lack of a straightforward answer,” Annatar said dryly, even as Tyelperinquar tugged him gently towards his bedchamber. “Tyelpe, if you have taken advantage of my absence as an excuse to acquire further cats – ahem, _kittens_ , yes yes – then I am practically obliged to leave you to your solitary enjoyment of their shed hair and attempt to find my own pleasure somewhere else.”

A threat as hollow as it was bombastic: Tyelperinquar just chuckled. “ _Stars_ , I have missed you. But nope. No more kittens, Annatar.”

“I feel as if I should be thanking _something_ for such a miracle,” Annatar said, still sardonic even as Tyelperinquar pushed open his bedchamber doors. “No more kittens, can you just imagine – _Tyelpe_.”

“Yes?” It came out just as gleeful as Tyelperinquar felt, and he felt no need to hide it.

“You said you had acquired no new kittens,” Annatar said, scowling.

“And I didn’t!”

“Then _what_ , my foolish love, are _those_?” Annatar asked, somewhat accusing, as he gestured towards the two puddles of sleepy black fur currently pooled across Tyelperinquar’s bedspread.

This was it – Tyelperinquar was seconds from laughing out loud whether Annatar was ready for it or not. “You don’t remember your own adopted children? Shoe the foul-smelling and Sock the beguiling? Annatar, I am mortified!”

But Annatar would not let himself be distracted or pulled from his calculating thousand-yard stare. “Those are _not_ your kittens, Tyelpe.”  

“No, you’re right.” Something about Annatar’s denial – full and instinctual – stifled Tyelperinquar’s laughter before it could emerge.

“But they are my cats, Annatar. They are near a year old now, and full grown.”

The statement was meant to be critical or severe in any way, and yet. And _yet_. Annatar seemed to hear something in it all the same, for he looked from Tyelperinquar to the cats sleeping atop his bed and back to Tyelperinquar again with some new understanding growing in his golden eyes.

“I have been gone a long time, have I not,” he said finally. Slowly, as if testing out the idea that things in his life were now subject to time.

And again with the not-questions! But somehow Tyelperinquar did not much feel like twitting him on this one. So he simply nodded: _yes._ “I know that nothing really changed – that you’ve had to leave before, and that you probably will have to do so again someday. But your absence seemed longer, this time, and I have missed you dearly. We all have.”

One of the pools of black fur on the bed – Sock, if Tyelperinquar was any judge from the corner of his vision – took this opportunity to blink awake and stretch, and the movement drew Annatar’s eyes back to the kittens, now cats, that he had so railed against when Tyelperinquar had first brought them home.

“Hmmm,” the Maia murmured, his brow furrowing with some unvoiced thought, and it was so rare that he fell back on sound rather than words that Tyelperinquar knew something had hit home.

“Tyelpe. . .” Annatar said softly, after another moment of silence watching Sock bat her brother awake and the two near full-grown cats trade sleepy blows. “Tyelpe, I – perhaps I will plan not to be absent for quite so long, the next time I must leave Ost-in-Edhil.”

And nothing would do then but for Tyelperinquar to kiss him again, as fierce and hungry as they had been against the wall in his outer chambers, and only their new audience’s inquiring noises could break his concentration this time.

 

~ ~ ~

Sock was not at all pleased by the stranger who had taken up part-time residence in Tyelperinquar’s rooms, and she took to following Tyelperinquar making this known with yowls of displeasure.

Annatar, perched on the side of the bed where he had not actually joined Tyelperinquar for a full night since seeing the cats again at their full size, eyed her with suspicion. “Tyelpe. Is she hungry.”

“I think she’s just angry.” He crouched down to soothe Sock, but she evaded his hands with another squall, and he let her have her space.

“Whatever does she have to be angry _about_?” Annatar asked with some slight exasperation. Sock’s recent unease had not gone unnoticed. “She has a great, safe expanse of rooms to explore and despoil at her leisure, and a male who will not fight her for either the territory or her season. She has the best of food, and she need not even kill it for herself. She is simply a ridiculous beast, Tyelpe.”

“Tsk.” He was still crouched on the floor, balancing on the balls of his feet with one hand outstretched in a peace offering toward Sock – who ignored him. “Poor little princess. You’re needling me now, Annatar, admit it.”

“Oh, am I.” Annatar gave up his seat on the bed in favor of stretching out on his side across it instead, head pillowed on his left arm. “I was aware of no such motive, so please – do enlighten me, Tyelpe.”

“Needling and now mocking too!” He clicked his fingers at Sock, but apparently that was more of a last straw than an adequate olive branch, and she glided away in offended dignity. Tyelperinquar stood, sighing. “Dammit. Anyway, to your point, my friend – there’s more to life than food and shelter and safety, and you know that. It’s just that they’ve gotten used to having me all to themselves, and then all of a sudden they have to share again!”

“ _Quaint_.” Annatar pronounced the word with the same intonation that most would give _disgusting._ “As if I had not been here when she and her brother were mere kits whose lack of names sent you into a case of nervous fretting.”

“Funny,” Tyelperinquar murmured, rising to his feet to come and stand by the side of his own bed, where Annatar had stretched out to watch him. “That’s not how I remember it at all. . .”

“Mmmm.” Annatar accepted a kiss – and then two, and then three – with a rumble of pleasure. “Is it not? What do you remember then? As you know, I have been gone for so long that both my lover and his cats have utterly forgotten me, so I may need a refresher in other areas as well.”

Tyelperinquar chuckled as he pulled back, taking a seat on the bed beside Annatar’s waist. “Well! There was wine involved-“

“Of course there was,” Annatar said dismissively, forgetting the game for a moment in order to wave this aside contemptuously. “It was us, how could there not have been wine.”

“Hush, and let me tell the story!” A light jab at Annatar’s ribs led to a squawk of mock displeasure and a glare, so Tyelperinquar hurried on before he could be headed off into another mock debate. “There was wine, and a nice fire, and a couple of ridiculous excuses from you that because the poor things weren’t old enough to be useful – and weren’t dogs! – that you couldn’t name them, and-“

“Oh,” Annatar said, and something in his tone told Tyelperinquar to look down, where he watched in confusion as a distant look stole across his lover’s face. “Yes. Yes, indeed.”

“Don’t go all solemn on me now.” Tyelperinquar jabbed at his ribs again, light and playful, but still Annatar frowned, lost in thought. “Annatar?”

“We must find new names for them,” Annatar said, lying back and looking up to meet his eyes again. “The ones they bear now were selected in jest, and – well, they have grown, since. They need not bear litter-names for the rest of their lives simply because you listened to my foolish ramblings after a little drink.”

This was – this was so far from what Tyelperinquar had expected to hear from his lover that he just stared. “Annatar?”

Annatar sighed, and if he had ever stooped so far as to roll his eyes, then Tyelperinquar imagined that this would be one of the rare times that he did. “Tyelpe. My precious. You were good enough to indulge me that night when I recounted my silly tales of a former-“ his hesitation was so minute that Tyelperinquar would have missed it if he hadn’t been listening for it, wondering about it- “ _friend_ and told you that he would have given your silly beasts sillier names. You need indulge me no longer. Gift your creatures with titles more suitable to their adult selves.”

“Mmmm.” Maybe another kiss would distract Annatar, and so Tyelperinquar bent to give him one. No other reason, of course. “There are only two problems with such a grand venture, Annatar.”

He strove to keep his voice just as soft as Annatar’s, but less impassive. “First – I hope it is not too forward of me to question whether he was just a friend to you, whoever this other Power might have been.” The hardening of Annatar’s face answered _that_ quite fully without him saying another word, so Tyelperinquar left it at that. He still had no idea who the other had been, or what had happened when Annatar had come to Middle-earth to join the War of Wrath against the Moringotto, but – well, it was obvious that Annatar had never fully relinquished his memories of the other.

“And second!” Tyelperinquar gave in to the growing urge to flop over on his own side so that he was facing Annatar on the bed, and could easily reach out and touch him. “Second, and equally important – Annatar, have you _met_ your precocious children? They stare off into the middle distance when there is nothing there. They curl into themselves to sleep but then leave a leg dangling out over an edge. They scream when there is nothing wrong and they are simply bored. Annatar, I have seen them play with their own shit!”

Annatar’s grim façade broke a little at this last, and he snorted.

Grinning himself, Tyelperinquar caught at the hand that Annatar was just raising to hide his smile. “No no no, you don’t get to do that, let me see – _stars_ , Annatar, you are so beautiful.”

“Flatterer,” Annatar accused, but let Tyelperinquar stay his hand.

“No need, with you,” Tyelperinquar retorted, pressing the fingers of that captive hand to his mouth for a kiss. “Now. Stop distracting me. All right – yes, playing with their own shit. Do you know what that means, Annatar?”

“Permit me a guess, mmm? It means that your senseless but at least endearing kittens have grown up to be equally senseless but less explicable cats.”

“Well, I mean. . .” He kissed the tops of Annatar’s fingers one last time before releasing the other’s hand. “No, actually, I like my answer better. It just means that their names – Shoe and Sock – might be less applicable now but also that I wouldn’t change them for the world because their bearers are still just as lovable and silly.”

Annatar sat bolt upright. “Tyelpe. You are as ridiculous as your damned cats.”

“Oh?” He remained reclined as he was, grinning up at his lover. “What did I do now?”

“If offered the entire world to change their ridiculous names, you would not do it?” Annatar cried, with the most indignation that this conversation had prompted thus far. “Tyelpe, do you have any idea the amount of time and resources you could save with such a simple trade? And you would refuse it out of what – sentiment for names that are unsuitable anyway? My own! I feel like I hardly even know you! I-“

Laughing, Tyelperinquar tugged his lover back down to the bed and pulled him, still expounding on the many flaws of Tyelperinquar’s own short-sightedness, close to his chest. “Fine, fine! Annatar, I would change their names on one condition – that you helped me pick new ones, as you did for their first.”

Annatar huffed. “ _Fine, fine_ ,” he agreed, in sing-song imitation of Tyelperinquar himself. “Only if you also promise that, given the chance to change the course of the world by doing something so small, you will also take it.”

Tyelperinquar laughed into his hair. “Deal! If I am ever offered a chance to alter the world and the deal seems too easy, I will certainly consider it.”

“That’s all I could ask,” Annatar muttered, still sulking a little as he wriggled out of Tyelperinquar’s grasp just far enough that he could reach up for another kiss.

And of course Tyelperinquar let him have it, and as many more as he wanted besides.

 

~ ~ ~

Still, it was some days before Tyelperinquar could identify a suitable occasion. But when he did – oh, nothing else could have compared anyway!

“There is not a single aspect of this ritual that makes even a shred of sense,” Annatar said critically, watching with weary amusement as Tyelperinquar put the finishing touches on his latest project.

“Oh hush, you – it’s not about making sense, it’s about following a tradition that marks this day as a special occasion.” Finally satisfied with his efforts, Tyelperinquar wiped his hands and stepped back to admire the results.

“ _Do_ try not to be ridiculous, Tyelpe, I am well aware of the need for ritual and spectacle among communities ordinarily shackled to time and routine,” Annatar returned comfortably. “I am simply surprised at this particular instantiation of such an urge, that is all. Who decided that putting a candle on a cake and then just blowing it out could be anything more than a sad misuse of multiple resources?”

“Men, of course! Stars, the Edain think up some of the best ideas, and you, Annatar, are simply a spoilsport. Now! Where are the birthday boy and girl?”

Annatar padded after him on soundless feet as Tyelperinquar took up the two little meat cakes and left his antechamber for the main room, calling for Sock and Shoe as he went. “Children! Children, your father and I have a surprise for you!”

“Oh, I am the father now?” Annatar asked, settling into his favorite padded chair with a sigh when neither of the cats immediately appeared. “Are you the mother, Tyelpe?”

Tyelperinquar grinned over at him, distracted. “Not the original plan, I admit, but I can already see several benefits of doing it that way, so – I wouldn’t be opposed!”

For the first time in all the years he had known the Maia, Tyelperinquar was treated to the sight of Annatar actually rolling his eyes.

“Hah! Your corruption by the Children of Eru is complete, Annatar, there is no way you learned that from anyone else besides the Mírdain-“

“You give yourself too little credit, Tyelpe,” Annatar corrected with a long-suffering sigh. “That is all due to _you_ and the nonsense you subject me to on a regular basis. Oh – hush now, stop your capering, here come your children to investigate what foolishness their father is up to.”

 _First_ his first eye roll and _then_ the first time he had ever fallen into Tyelperinquar’s habit of calling Sock and Shoe ‘children,’ all in one day. . . “I feel distinctly blessed right now, Annatar.”

“Whatever for?” Annatar asked, distracted. “You ridiculous creature, how did you plan to light their candles if both your hands are full of those disgusting cakes, hold still a moment. . .”

And then Annatar was bustling up from his place in the chair to join Tyelperinquar in his by the hearth, where he then flicked his thumb against his index finger and flame blossomed from where the nail should have been.

And there he stood beside Tyelperinquar as if there was nothing to it – no difference in degree between a demigod and an Elda, no blood-soaked histories in Tyelperinquar’s line, no slightly outlandish angle to what they were doing now, celebrating the birth-dates of two year-old cats. No – Annatar simply took a place at Tyelperinquar’s side as if he belonged there, tongue peeking from between his lips and brow furrowing with concentration as he touched the small flame at his thumb to the wick of each candle, a small grin breaking across his face when both wicks caught, and held.

“Ah – there you go, Tyelpe. Do try and plan better next time, yes? Now you can get on with your silly celebration – what. Precious. What. Why are you staring at me?”

“Because.”

_I think I love you._

“Words, precious,” Annatar chided softly, reach up to tap him gently on the forehead. “Contrary to popular belief, I cannot actually hear every word that you articulate in the privacy of your own mind.”

“Another time, then,” Tyelperinquar promised, still reeling a little from the discovery himself.

“Mmmm. If you say so.” Annatar sounded disbelieving. “Now. Put those absurd things down before you drop them and do tell if you have a plan that will allow your silly children to eat their treats without having to deal with fire as well.”

Tyelperinquar tried not to watch every Annatar’s every move as his lover followed him down to a seat on the floor. “Well, the way my uncle used to tell it, there’s actually a song that’s supposed to be a part of this birth-date ritual, but unfortunately I never heard that part of the story.”

Annatar hummed as he watched Shoe and Sock pad towards their birth-date cakes, sniffing in curiosity. “Well. If there is any way that your uncle can be persuaded to make the trip out to Ost-in-Edhil sometime, I would so love to hear the full history. I never dealt with Men to any great extent before being accepted to dwell in the beautiful and all-inclusive city of Ost-in-Edhil, and besides – I dare not venture too far afield now anyway, given how quickly I am forgotten in my absence.”  

“And now we’re back to mocking me again – ai, Annatar, I am wounded!” But the familiar rhythm of their banter was soothing, actually – it proved that nothing really needed to change, after the life-shattering realization that Tyelperinquar had just had. “But no, sadly, I am afraid that you will have to ask the Men of the North themselves about their commemorative rituals, as my uncle is dead. He was killed by Gorthaur the Cruel many years before the War of Wrath.”

Sock and Shoe had finally ventured all the way forward towards where he and Annatar were seated, and Tyelperinquar watched with amusement as they swatted and snuffled at the little meat cakes, apparently not realizing that the treats were meant to be eaten, not toyed with. And, despite the reminder of past loss, something within Tyelperinquar could not help but marvel at the perfection of this moment – seated with a dear friend and lover far from war or any shadow of it, watching two innocent creatures explore new parts of their world, and all by the soft, soft light of a few candles.

“We should probably extinguish at least the ones on the cakes,” he murmured, just as Annatar seemed to rouse from a surprised stupor to ask: “Which uncle was this, Tyelpe? I did not realize that rogue Maiar took such a personal hand in the affairs of the Eldar.”

“Move, move, for just a breath, little ones,” Tyelperinquar murmured, scooting first Shoe and then Sock aside as he puffed on the candle flames, extinguishing them. “There – now you can eat!”

Then, in the growing darkness as the cats scrambled forward to renew their attacks upon the meat cakes, Tyelperinquar looked over to Annatar. “The uncle I mentioned? Oh – Findaráto Felagund, lord of Nargothrond. As far as we have ever been able to tell, he was slain in Tol Sirion, Gorthaur’s own stronghold at the time, when he was called upon to aid the line of his former lover.”

Annatar looks – intrigued. “I am familiar with the basic story and certainly with the name of the fortress, but less so with the details that you mention. Findaráto Felagund, lord of Nargothrond, eh – was he a singer of some slight ability, your uncle?”

“He was,” Tyelperinquar said, his voice catching at the memory of a well-beloved mentor and friend. “And Annatar, I am sure that he would have loved to meet you – he loved telling that story, and so many others besides, and he would have had at least a hundred questions for you as a Maia come to these shores. Did you know, he was also the one who met the first mass migration of the Edain out of the East, and it was by his statecraft that we had any alliances with Men in those early years at all?”

But thinking of Findaráto always led in the end to other memories that Tyelperinquar couldn’t confront without a drink or three more than he had at hand right this moment, so. “But Annatar, please – let us save Findaráto’s memory and his deeds for another day when we will not be cutting into our first commemoration of the children’s birth!”

“As you say,” Annatar concurred, though it was obvious that he still had questions.

But then, suddenly fierce, he added: “I am glad that you are here, Tyelpe. I know your spirit, and I know your drive to do what you believe is the right thing, and I imagine that, if you were also in Nargothrond when this uncle of yours left, you must have been minded to follow him. I am glad you did not. You deserve, and have always deserved, so much better than an ignominious ending in a cautionary tale of the First Age.”

There was so much that Annatar could not possibly understand about that time, especially if he was not even in Middle-earth yet, that Tyelperinquar decided to save his true thoughts on this opinion until a better time. “Mmmm. I suppose so.”

But Annatar deserved a turn too, did he not, for surely having sacrificed so much more than Tyelperinquar ever did. For coming to dwell among the Gwaith-i-Mírdain. For coming to Tyelperinquar.  “And I am glad that you decided to remain upon Middle-earth when the War was done, Annatar. We have been blessed to have you among us.”

. . . but no, that was not quite it, not really, and Annatar deserved to hear the whole of it. “Or really – _I_ have been blessed, Annatar.”

“Mmmmm.” Annatar shuffled across the floor a little so that he was sitting right beside Tyelperinquar rather than corner to him, and his head fell lightly to lie atop Tyelperinquar’s shoulder.

Much as with Shoe’s and Sock’s names earlier, Tyelperinquar realized, he would not have traded such a moment for the world.

“Happy birthday, little ones,” he told the cats softly, as together – reunited – he and Annatar watched them gambol and play-fight and eat.

“May they enjoy just as many years as you and I,” Annatar echoed, just as soft.  

**Author's Note:**

> also! 50th work on Ao3! aaaaah


End file.
